Tuesday, 17 January 2017

To Brew List

There's been a lot of talk recently about the price and reliability of cask ale and about the breweries getting out of that particular game, but all that's getting a bit boring by now so I thought I'd write up a slightly self-indulgent slice of homebrewing life instead.

I don't know how detailed other peoples' medium-term brewing plans are, but personally I tend to have a sort of semi-formalized mental list of things I'd like to get around to brewing at some point. The ideas can be based on wanting something similar to a commercial beer that I've drunk, or on ingredients, styles or techniques that I'd be interested to try out, while the actual list varies from day to day, and only occasionally actually gets written down.

For context, my most recent brews have been as follows:

An American Pale Ale. Mostly Golden Promise with 6% each of medium crystal and wheat. 1.048 OG, 46 IBU with a reasonable whack of Galaxy and Amarillo late in the boil and Citra dry hop. Successful brew, drinking very nicely.

A Foreign Extra Stout. Made from Golden Promise again, with about 5% each of Brown Malt, Carafa II, Medium Crystal and Special B. 1.064 OG, hopped to 37 IBU with Challenger, no late hops. Finished up at about 1.020. Drinkable but on the sweet side compared to what I was aiming for.

A strong Ruby Mild. Based on the Graham Wheeler version of Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby - Golden Promise and various crystal malts to 1.059 OG, hopped to 32 IBU with a bit of Challenger chucked in at 10 mins. This was a challenging brew - the original yeast conked out too soon, some replacement yeast left it too dry, and there might have been a hint of something funky in a few of the bottles that I've tried so far. Plus the colour is more "mid amber" than "dark ruby"!

And in the fermenter at the moment is an American Amber Ale - A variation on the American Pale, but with Simpsons Lager Malt as a base, their Double Roast Crystal substituted for the medium crystal, dialed back IBUs, and citra and chinook hops for aroma.

Now, part of my reason for homebrewing is to have a steady supply of easy drinking light-to-medium coloured ales that I can break out at social occasions without losing too many friends. The possibly-shonky Dark Ruby Mild and the sweet and sticky Foreign Extra Stout have left me short stacked in that department, so I'm playing it fairly safe with the current brew, and will do the same with the next one - probably another bash at the Dark Ruby but with a few grams of Carafa added for colour and a more dependable yeast used from the start.

After that, I've got a number of ideas bouncing around:

A Euro-hopped American Blonde. Possibly with Vienna malt? This would be interesting to try, because I don't really know much about European hops. It'd also be an interesting test of how my process is coming on, since any flaws are likely to be glaringly obvious, but that also makes it a relatively high-risk option.

A Red Rye IPA. I generally like this style, haven't brewed it before, and have Chinook, Mosaic and Simcoe hops sitting around which should go well.

A Mirto Milk Stout. I'm not normally into sticking weird stuff into beer, but a milk stout with Kentish hops and Sardinian dried myrtle berries seems like it'd be a nice nod to my baby nephew's mixed heritage as he comes up to his first birthday.

More variations on the Dark Ruby Mild recipe. I think this might be a good basis for experimenting with sugars and with interesting speciality malts. I'm particulary tempted to try brewing it with a smidgeon of smoked malt, if only for the name The Ruby in the Smoke.